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Swedish bus driver sacked for sending text message

Published: 9 Oct 09 16:14 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/22568/20091009/

A Swedish bus driver has been sacked for sending a text message while driving from Stockholm to Norrtälje. The driver was caught on film by a passenger.

"We have conducted an investigation and regard the incident as very serious, we have thus decided to terminate the trial period," Ted Stridsberg at operator Busslink told the Norrtelje Tidning newspaper.

The bus-driver was filmed apparently writing a text message on his mobile phone while driving from Danderyd to Norrtälje north of Stockholm on Tuesday evening.

The film shows the driver pushing buttons on his mobile phone while driving the bus with his elbows. The bus was travelling at high speed along the motorway at the time and he appeared to send several messages.

The driver has leapt to his own defence arguing that at no time did he put the safety of the passengers in jeopardy.

"I used the telephone when it was quiet on the road and we were driving along a straight stretch of road," he told the newspaper.

Furthermore the driver maintains that he was responding to a missed call from management.

The driver has received support from union representatives who argue that some of the responsibility should rest with the company and management.

"It becomes an obligation when an employer rings up and expects that one should receive instructions - at the same time as they know that he is working," Bengt Bryungs at the Kommunal union told the DN.se news website.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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20:14 October 9, 2009 by dj_alesi
I'm a bus driver and this is BS....all the bus companies calls their employees while they are driving! They are just trying to save they own skin!
09:05 October 10, 2009 by Rick Methven
It is about time that Sweden follows the other safety concious countries of Europe and Ban the use of mobile phones for speach as well as text while driving. VV is against the use of phones on the move but parliament still won't enact the law
17:05 October 10, 2009 by Puffin
It's a problem - Sweden debated switching to hands free only a few years ago as the UK have gone - however driver concentration was shown to be equally bad with hands free as with a handset it is taking the call that is the most dangerous factor - the type of handset made little difference in the tests - VV want to ban all phones including hands-free - parliament was reluctant to ban them so we have the current situation where using a phone is not illegal
22:07 October 10, 2009 by justanotherexpat
I would be interested to know why my comment was deleted.
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